The Radioactive Boy Scout

This was a book I read on my travels. If you're interested in nuclear energy and whackos, this is the book for you. On the other hand, if you're not interested enough to read the book, it's still a scary story worth hearing about. It seems that a 15 year old kid in the Detroit suburbs managed to scavenge enough nuclear materials to assemble a non-working but nevertheless radiation-producing breeder reactor in his backyard. He got Radium from old clocks, Thorium by pulverizing mantles from gas lanterns, Americium from smoke detectors, Beryllium from a buddy at a lab, and copious advice from the Department of Energy. Along the way, he earned his Atomic Energy merit badge -- well deserved, I might add! He basically reproduced a lot of the experiments that the Curies did. In the end, the EPA had to declare his back yard a Superfund cleanup site. And you thought your neighbors were difficult!